Before we resume line-by-line consideration, may I ask everyone to ensure that their electronic devices, including phones, are turned off or silenced? I remind hon. Members that Mr Speaker does not allow tea or coffee to be brought into Committee sittings.
Today’s selection list is available in the Committee Room and on the Bill website. It shows how the selected amendments—generally those on the same or a similar issue—have been grouped for debate. I will use my discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses and schedules after debate on the relevant amendments.
Clause 44

Helen Goodman: I beg to move amendment 39, in clause47,page34,line33,leave out paragraph (a).
This amendment would remove paragraph 2(a) from Clause 47, which enables the appropriate Minister to amend, repeal or revoke enactments for regulations under section 1 or 43.
We return to the vexed issue of Henry VIII powers and the Government over-reaching themselves once again. I want to recall for the Committee what happened on this matter in the Lords. Lord Judge moved an amendment to leave out paragraph (a), because he was concerned that it was a Henry VIII provision. Our amendment covers the same issue. Lord Judge said that
“with Clause 44, there is no primary legislation at all...It just says, ‘Let’s give the Minister regulation-making powers for this, that and the other’...This is all being done on the basis of an unknown law, because the Minister has not yet brought the regulations into existence.”
One might say that clauses 47 and 48 are pure Henry VIII powers. They give Ministers the power to change this piece of legislation and other pieces of legislation in perpetuity before the regulations under the clauses have been made. This is perhaps slightly more difficult to understand than the problems with making new criminal offences by regulations, but it is wholly objectionable.
Lord Judge continued:
“In advance of the law being made by regulation, we are giving the Minister power to amend the regulations and to do away with statute. This is in a world where, as we discussed earlier, we already have the Terrorism Act, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, the Terrorism Asset-Freezing etc Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act…all of which bear on this Act, and all of which will be susceptible to amendment repeal at the Minister’s behest…the secondary will override the primary; and the Minister is in effect going to replace Parliament”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 718.]
It was not just the Cross-Bench peers who expressed concern about this. Viscount Hailsham, another Lord with a great deal of legal experience, also argued against it. He said:
“It could be used in amending, revoking or repealing existing legislation or to extend classes of offence to which the amended legislation applied. It could be used to increase penalties. It could be used to remove statutory defences. It could be used to amend the definition of criminal intent. Indeed, it could make absolute offences that presently require proof of a specific intent. Because it is an amending power, it could be used to give further powers to the investigating officials or to increase the penalties imposed by the courts.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 719.]
Lord Pannick, as everybody will recall, was the lawyer who ensured that article 50 was brought to Parliament rather than exercised through the royal prerogative, and he is a person with a strong commitment to this House. He argued that this excess of Henry VIII powers could lead to a point where,
“the courts are not prepared to accept them and are showing every sign that they will give them the narrowest possible interpretation because, as a matter of constitutional principle, they are objectionable”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 721.]
The Committee has gone over the argument about the problem with Henry VIII powers before, and we have debated it in the Chamber on the European Union (Withdrawal Bill.) People may begin to find it slightly boring, but we are debating it repeatedly because the Government have stuffed it into the Bill so many times. That is the problem, so we really need to persuade Ministers that it is excessive and we need to demonstrate how much they are going down that path.
Of course Ministers think, “When we write these regulations it will all be absolutely fine, because we are nice chaps. It will all be perfectly okay,” but they need to remember that they might not always be in power. Other Ministers might write regulations, about which the current Ministers might not be quite so enthusiastic. We need to be a lot more cautious. I do not understand why Minsters have structured the Bill in such a way. They should have put into primary legislation the overall structure for making regulations on both sanctions and anti-money laundering. Ministers are in an even weaker position on anti-money laundering than they are on sanctions.
There is a case for saying that individual sanctions must be made swiftly, and therefore having the negative resolution procedure for statutory instruments is common sense. We all understand that. However, I cannot fathom why Ministers have not said to the lawyers, “Can we please structure this so that we have the overall shape of the way these things work and the penalties in primary legislation?”, and Ministers could categorise them. They could say, “We will have a class A, a class B and a class C, and then we will name them quickly,” in the way that we do with drugs when people make new chemical formulae and we have to swiftly designate things. That would have got over the problem.
We started with clause 1(1), which states that Ministers may make sanctions regulations. Here we are, right at the end of the Bill, and the pattern is still the same. We still have the same problem.

Helen Goodman: Of course, nobody thinks that we should not have effective measures to tackle terrorist financing. That is plain and there is an obvious consensus about that. There are two questions. First, is this the appropriate way to go about it? Secondly—I would like the Minister to elucidate on this a little further—could the Minister give us some examples of the kind of changes to terrorist financing, which are not caught at the moment, but which could be dealt with in regulations as the issues arose?

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 7—Parliamentary committee to scrutinise regulations—
“(1) A Minister may not lay before Parliament a statutory instrument under section 48(5) unless a committee of the House of Commons charged with scrutinising statutory instruments made under this Act has recommended that the instrument be laid.
(2) The committee of the House of Commons so charged under subsection (1) may scrutinise any reviews carried out under section 27 of this Act.”
This new clause would require a specialised House of Commons Committee to approve all statutory instruments laid under the affirmative procedure under this Act. The Committee would also scrutinise the Government’s reviews of sanctions regulations.

You have obviously provoked some interest, Ms Thewliss.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 42, in clause54,page41,line16,leave out “may” and insert “must”.
Amendment 43, in clause54,page41,line22,leave out “may” and insert “must”.
Amendment 44, in clause54,page41,line25,leave out “may” and insert “must”.

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 8—Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies in the British Crown Dependencies—
(1) For the purpose of preventing money laundering, the Secretary of State must consult with the authorities of governments in each Crown Dependency on establishing a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies registered in their jurisdictions.
(2) Within 6 months of this Act being passed, and every 12 months thereafter, the Secretary of State must report to Parliament on progress within the Crown Dependencies on establishing registers as referred to in subsection (1).
(3) In this section a “publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership of companies” means a register which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, provides information broadly equivalent to that available in accordance with the provisions of Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006 (information about people with significant control).”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to consult with the governments in each Crown Dependency about introducing public registers of beneficial ownership of companies in the Crown Dependencies, and to report to Parliament on the progress of establishing such registers.

Order. Lie?

Thank you, Sir Alan. You have woken me from my slumbers!

That is not strictly speaking a point of order. Perhaps we can stick with the detail of the new clause, though.

Order.